3 Comments

They can do whatever they want to do and make whatever money they want to make, but when their parent companies decide to attempt to grant themselves the ability to choke off free speech as they choose in order to make a few extra bucks (of which the artists are likely to see pennies if anything at all) we're going to draw a line in the sand. Honestly, this is a line we should have drawn with the NDAA and the Patriot Act before it, and which we're most likely going to have to draw again with the EEA thanks to Joe Lieberman.

We may disagree with you on a number of issues, but dismissing us as blithering idiots willing to sign away right after right in the name of protecting wealthy nincompoops in both the government and private industry is a serious error on your part. In fact, I'd go a bit farther than that and suggest that such a characterization is fairly accurate-when applied to you.

...which simply goes to show that you shouldn't run around assuming that because your own life was tough and the system didn't do you justice, that "the system" or "the man" is inherently evil and always best answered with a raised middle finger. I sure as hell don't like the fact that they then sell this message to anyone who will listen, mostly angry, disillusioned young adults who don't necessarily have much to believe in as it is and as such are unusually prone to take the easy (read: self-destructive) way out as it is.

Rant aside, I think that this is all a big joke. The fact that piracy is as easy and widespread as it is means that something is fundamentally wrong with the way content is being licensed and distributed to consumers. Most people generally follow the law; the only reason I can think of that you'll start seeing masses flout it to the point that something like SOPA can make it out of committee is if the current system is so byzantine and restrictive that people just say "Hang it all, I'll just take the damn thing!" and move on.